When my family would take road trips during the summer, one of the things we did to pass the time was play what we called the movie game. It’s great for long road trips, airports, and waiting rooms. Heck, I even played it with coworkers when I worked the graveyard shift at the airport.
It’s very simple. It is a variation of other alphabet games you may have played. You pick a letter of the alphabet, any letter. Then you each take turns saying a movie that begins with that letter. If you can’t think of a movie, you are out. You also, of course, cannot repeat a movie that has already been said. If you do, you are not out, you just have to come up with a new movie. That also means it is up to everyone to remember everything that has been said.
The, A, An, etc. don’t count. The Empire Strikes Back belongs to the letter E not to the letter T. A Knights Tale belongs to the the letter K and not to the letter A. An Affair to Remember belongs to the letter A and not the letter… oh, well, you get it.
There will come a point when someone will name a movie that you have never heard of before. If the other person cannot adequately defend their choice by giving you who starred in it, or what the plot was, or just how they know it is a movie, then it doesn’t count, and they must pick a different movie.
Sequels need a special rule as well. I have tried different rules regarding sequels and the one I like the best is, you can only use a sequel if it has a different name. For example, we are doing the letter R and I say Rocky. You then cannot say Rocky 2, 3, 4, or 5. You can, however, say Rocky Balboa, which was the sixth movie in the franchise. It has a different name, not just the same name with a number after it. Also, sequels that start with the same phrase, like Harry Potter and the (blank), belong to the first letter after the common phrase. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone belongs to the letter S. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban belongs to the letter P.
The person who is the last one to name a movie for that particular letter gets a point and picks the next letter of the game. Last-Ups, like last at bats, count. For example, it comes down to 2 players left. The player who originally went first, Player A, names a movie. Player B then names a movie. If Player A can’t name another one, Player B still hasn’t won because at that point they are still only tied. Player B still needs one more for the “go ahead run.”
Another fun variation is with actors. Only in this version you have to pick an actor who starts with the last letter of the last name of the previous actor. Player A picks Brad Pitt, then Player B needs an actor that starts with T. If, at anytime, someone says an actor with the same first initials (Robert Redford, RR) then order of play is reversed. If you were going clockwise, you then switch to counter-clockwise. This game tends to go faster per round, especially if you keep getting the same letter at the end of names. However, it also doesn’t seem to last as long in total as the first game.
These games really are fun. I love it when I have three movie names in my head for the given letter and I am trying to remember them all while thinking of new titles. I like keeping extra titles in reserve like backup ammo. It’s also fun to intimidate the others while they are scrambling for titles. “I have three in my head… oh, now it’s four.”
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